view larger

Member: patwagner

CollectionsYour library (2,895), To read (1), All collections (2,895)

Reviews1 review

Tagshistory (278), economics (192), politics (180), philosophy (171), business (127), reference (124), science (121), biography (112), psychology (99), literature (87) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

GroupsNone

Favorite authorsPoul Anderson, Hannah Arendt, Isaac Asimov, Petr Beckmann, John Buchan, Robin Chotzinoff, Susan Cooper, Norman Corwin, Viktor Frankl, John Gall, Garet Garrett, John Taylor Gatto, Rachel Singer Gordon, Robert K. Greenleaf, F. A. Hayek, Karl Hess, Paul Johnson, Arthur Koestler, Alfred Korzybski, Nancy Kress, Louis L'Amour, Rose Wilder Lane, Kim Long, George MacDonald, Bill Mauldin, Ludwig von Mises, Patrick O'Brian, P. J. O'Rourke, Michael Polanyi, Karl Popper, Murray N. Rothbard, Bertrand Russell, Joanna Russ, Virginia Satir, Dorothy L. Sayers, Mary McDermott Shideler, Nevil Shute, Thomas Sowell, Roger J. Williams, William Carlos Williams, W. B. Yeats (Shared favorites)

About meMy husband Leif Smith and I have a small consulting and research business. He is also the founder of a nonprofit foundation called the Explorers Foundation. We tend to serve innovators and explorers.

I spend most of my time travelling around the United States, providing training and consulting for libraries, universities, local government, nonprofits, small business and professional and trade groups. Our main interest in books is to identify useful tools for ourselves and our clients. Politically, I would probably be most comfortable with the label "classical liberal" - I am pragmatic and reasonable, but, in my heart, a radical idealist of the voluntaryist flavor.

About my libraryI have been involved in books and libraries since the late sixties as a poet, publisher, author, printer, editor, graphic designer, columnist and book reviewer. Even though I am a little bit of a type junkie, I collect for content, not for appearance. Read mostly nonfiction. Our collection leans towards economics, history, philosophy, science, technology, business, psychology and interdisciplinary studies. We like to find and rescue books that have been overlooked by the mainstream. I was a contributing editor and columnist at The Bloomsbury Review for many years, which gave me access to many wonderful books from small, literary and academic presses. But I look for the old stuff as well. Also like books that are not cynical and offer both critical ideas and realistic hope and opportunity.

Books with the tag "friend" mean we know this author personally, as in breaking bread, first name basis, partied into the night etc., and are not particularly objective in our assessments.

Books with the tag "OP" are sadly out-of-print, but are available, thanks to online services, used bookstores, and, of course, libraries.

Following my experience with The Bloomsbury Review, I only star books for which I have a strong, positive opinion. Three stars mean a good read, four stars means excellent content, and five stars means excellent content AND excellent writing AND is probably seminal in its field. No stars might simply mean a book that I have not made my mind up about, not that it is a less worthy book.

Welcome suggestions, particularly regarding those books which fall into the classification of classical liberalism.

Homepagehttp://www.pattern.com

Also onLinkedIn, Twitter

Real namePat Wagner

LocationDenver, Colorado

Emailpatpattern.com

Account typepublic, non-personal member

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/patwagner (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/patwagner (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (150), Awards (173), Characters (1694), Places (346)

Member sinceJul 22, 2006